Shelving structure



Dec. 2, 1969 G. R. SQUIRES SHELVING STRUCTURE Filed Oct. 20, 1967 IN YEN 708 550 966 A. JQU/KiS Ill ITTORNEY United States Patent 3,481,486 SHELVING STRUCTURE George R. Squires, 19 Heathclitf Road, Rumson, NJ. 07760 Filed Oct. 20, 1967, Ser. No. 676,835 Int. Cl. A47f /00, 5/10 US. Cl. 211153 4 Claims ABSTRACT OF THE DISCLOSURE The present invention relates to shelving structure and more particularly to shelves which may be adjustably positioned on uprights with tensioned and secure fastening of shelf to upright.

Downturned flanges along the edges of a sheet metal shelf have been found to reinforce the shelf as by preventing bowing along the length of the shelf when relatively heavy objects or weight loads are positioned thereon. In this type of strengthened shelf, the flanges are sometimes terminated short of the corners so that some type of corner mounting arrangement may be positioned at this location to fasten the shelf to its respective corner uprights. Various corner mounting arrangements have been devised for fastening the shelf to its uprights, however, the desired tight alignment of the assembled shelving has not been achieved.

It is therefore an object of the present invention to provide a shelf which lends itself especially in providing increased tightness of the overall shelving assembly.

It is a further object of this invention to provide a shelf which has vertical supporting members-along the longitudinal edges and the ends thereof, these vertical supporting members being pulled or tensed toward the upright when the fastening means between the shelf corner and upright is tightened.

It is still another object of the invention to provide a three piece shelf which includes a pair of end brackets assembled within the planar portion at each end thereof without the use of tools, the three piece shelf having corners formed by portions of the end brackets themselves, the comers of the end brackets being used for drawing, tightening, and fastening the shelf to uprights positioned at the corners thereof thereby completing a tight and stiff assembly.

Other advantages and objects of this invention will become apparent as the following specification is read in connection with the accompanying drawing in which:

FIGURE 1 is a perspective view of a shelf construction according to one embodiment of this invention;

FIGURE 2 is a sectional view of the shelf assembly of FIGURE 1 taken along the lines 22 of FIGURE 1 showing further the relationship of end bracket in the shelf assembly;

FIGURE 3 is a perspective view of the shelf of FIG- URE 1 in assembled relationship with an upright at one of the four corners thereof;

FIGURE 4 is a sectional view of the assembly of FIG- URE 3 taken along the lines 4-4 of FIGURE 3.

Throughout the various figures of the drawing, like Patented Dec. 2, 1969 reference numerals will be used where possible to designate like elements.

Referring now to FIGURE 1 a shelf assembly 10 is formed of a planar portion 12 with downturned flanges 14 along its longitudinal length or sides. The flanges 14 may also have an inward extension 16 to still further increase the rigidity or stiffness of the shelf 10 without requiring that the shelf be made of a heavy gauge sheet metal. The shelf assembly 10 may comprise sheet metal of about 25 gauge thickness and has been'broken away at S to show-the cross section thereof. A second piece 18 at one endand third piece 18 at the other end called end brackets form the complete assembly of the single shelf 10. The ends 20 of the end brackets 18 are small outturned flanges which easily snap into position during assembly by passing through vertical slots 22 in the longitudinal downturned flanges 14. The end brackets 18 are slipped into position at the opposite ends of the shelf 10 and the central vertically extending portion 26 of the end bracket acts to support the longitudinal end of the shelf planar portion 12 of the shelf 10. The central portion 26 may be retained by a small downturned flange 24 at the end of the planar portion 12 of the shelf assembly 10. Intermediate portions 28, between the central portion 26 and the outturned ends 20 of said bracket 18, form the corners of the shelf assembly 10. The intermediate portion 28 forms the corner of the shelf assembly 10 and is pulled toward the upright 13 when corner assembly hardware including a screw 31 is passed through corner post 13, aperture 27, winged washer 33, and nut 35 and tightened during the assembly of shelf 10 to the corner upright 13 as seen in FIGURE 3. The corner 28 is drawn to its respective upright 13 when the shelf 10 or a plurality of such shelves are fastened to their respective corner posts. As the corner 28 is fastened to the corner post 13 by the assembly hardware mentioned above, the flange 14 and central portion 26 which support the shelf are tightened, drawn and pulled toward the corner post 13 during the fastening procedure so that the overall shelving assembly is thereby provided with an extremely secure fastening connection of the components.

The arrangement for fastening the shelf assembly 10 to the corner post 13 may be the same as the arrangement shown in FIGURE 3 of US. Patent No. 3,056,507 to G. R. Squires et a1. and the uprights used herein may be of the telescoping type shown in FIGURE 2 of the above patent. The fastening arrangement and upright shown in FIGURES 3 and 4 of the present invention are the same as shown in the above referred to patent and are therefore referred to herein only briefly.

The construction in accordance with the present invention as herein described and disclosed may be utilized in different structures and has numerous applications, although it is particularly useful in metal shelving a1 rangements where a tight, stiff, and easily assembled shelving assembly is desired which does not require reinforcing side braces or complex corner brackets and/or fastening arrangements for the shelves.

I claim:

1. A shelf having a planar portion and downturned flanges along the longitudinal edges of said planar portion, said shelf having an end bracket at each end thereof, each end bracket having a central vertically extending portion for supporting the longitudinal end of said shelf, the ends of said end bracket arranged for fastening to said down turned flanges along the longitudinal edges of said shelf, intermediate portions between the central portion and the ends of said bracket forming the corners of said shelf and said intermediate portions being adapted for the fastening thereof to vertically extending support structure for said shelf.

2. A shelf according to claim 1 wherein said ends of said end bracket include small outturned flanges.

3. A shelf according to claim 1 wherein said downturned flanges include vertical slots.

4. A metal assembly comprising a first piece of metal having a central rectangular shaped planar portion with downturned flanges extending along portions of the sides and ends of said rectangular shaped planar portion, said downturned flanges which extend along the sides of said planar portion extending down a greater distance than said downturned flanges which extend along the ends of said planar portion, and a pair of end brackets, one of said end brackets being positioned in snap-fit relationship with said first piece of metal at each end thereof.

References Cited UNITED STATES PATENTS Staples 211153 X Bales 211-153 Squires 108106 Swanson 211-153 Tucker 108106 Ferdinand 108106 X U.S. Cl. X.R. 

